


A Chronology of Unfinished-ness

by holyfant



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Growing Old Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-28
Updated: 2012-04-28
Packaged: 2017-11-04 16:24:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/395811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holyfant/pseuds/holyfant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A lifetime of things that were never quite finished, but were still complete.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Chronology of Unfinished-ness

**Author's Note:**

> Written for this kink meme prompt: I'd like to see John and Sherlock having a perfect date and John realizing, at the end, that it's the first date that's gone to plan since they started dating.
> 
> The problem with that realization?
> 
> They started dating over thirty years ago, been married for ten, and have been retired for three.
> 
> Yet every single date they've been on has either been cut short, interrupted, turned into an assassination attempt/chase the criminal/solve a murder, or otherwise flopped.  
> Original fill [here.](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/18842.html?thread=113996186&%20#t113996186)  
> 

Their first offical date-that-is-a-date, not just a have-some-food-while-waiting-for-a-serial-killer-and-awkwardly-try-to-test-the-waters-date has Sherlock actually looking at him over the table, wide-eyed, seeming slightly dazed and far less smooth than John is used to from him. The spot of silence before their meal arrives would have been utterly and completely normal and companionable if it hadn't been their first official date-that-is-a-date, and Sherlock glowers at his fork and rearranges his napkin five times before John tells him, both uncomfortable and amused: “I asked you because I actually like you when you're being you, you know.” And though Sherlock rolls his eyes and says something snappy about multiple personality disorder his fingers around the cutlery relax, and they fall into a conversation about the new vaccine that John's been reading about, and that according to Sherlock is utter bollocks.

It seems to be going all right, and it is, until Sherlock suddenly goes very still and seems to have a crisis of identity of sorts, and runs off in the middle of the meal. Later he will tell John it was because he'd never looked at another living person for so long, and so much of it was overwhelming, because the data kept being renewed, and the details of John's fingers against the tablecloth and the food as it went into his mouth was too much – and it had felt like it would be okay to go away, just to not have it be so much. But that is later and at that moment John is left alone with a forkful of tomato-sauce-covered penne halfway to his mouth and thinks miserably about what an utter idiot he is. Angelo brings him a new glass of wine.

–

It's awkward the next day but Sherlock doesn't really do awkward, and soon John is back to normal, too, ready to accept that it was a one-off, an experiment that maybe Sherlock felt he should try and of which the outcome is now clear and catalogued.

But Sherlock, very formally, rife with _I would like it_ s and _It would be acceptable_ s, asks him out on a date a week later, and the blush that very lightly colours the improbable curve of his cheekbones makes John say yes before he's even really thought about it.

“So you do –” he says, when he has thought about it, five seconds later.

“Yes, I do,” Sherlock says, hurriedly, and pulls his chemistry goggles over his eyes as though they were some kind of barrier between them.

“All right,” John says, which is a bit of an inadequate way to describe the overwhelming wave of relief and giddiness that's threatening to overcome and drown him, and spends the next thirty minutes trying to put out the fire in his gut and trying not to look at Sherlock too often – because Sherlock has a quirk-of-mouth smile on his face that almost seems involuntary, and makes John so happy it's ridiculous.

At the Thai place they talk about a case and then about the coca trade in Colombia for reasons John will later struggle to remember, and Sherlock has wine, and touches John's hand a lot.

And then Lestrade calls and John only agrees to go because Sherlock actually argued with the D.I. over the necessity of his presence over the phone. It's two corpses and Sherlock brooding silently in the cab after, tapping his finger against his mouth in a regular pattern that makes John want to take his hand away and kiss him in that same rhythm.

And then maybe he's said that out loud because Sherlock's eyes are suddenly on him like pale searching lights, and the cabbie gives John a toothy grin in the rear view mirror when Sherlock pulls back, looking surprised at himself, mouth pink and a bit new.

At home it's corpses again, and Sherlock poring over pictures of them.

–

Their third date is disastrous; Sherlock is snappy and discontent over something that he won't elaborate on, and John curls his hands into fists in the loo and reminds himself that this is very normal behaviour for Sherlock, and if they're going to do this he'll have to accept that this is something that will not go away miraculously just because they now sometimes kiss each other.

“Let's just go home,” he says when he's back at the table. Their food hasn't even arrived yet, and Sherlock has the decency to look a bit worried, for a second, but that's really it.

At home, Sherlock takes John's face into his hands and stares at him for a long moment, until John becomes a bit uncomfortable.

What the kiss means he can't quite say, but it is there, and it does make things better.

–

They go for a long while without dates after that. There is a lot of other stuff – firsts, all of them, for John or for Sherlock. The first time Sherlock says “John, how would you feel about some sexual activity?” looking a bit crazy as he pokes his head around the shower curtain behind which John is showering, almost provoking him into a seizure. The first time, about ten minutes later, when they are naked against each other and the water is like a cocoon and the first time, another ten minutes later, when Sherlock comes into John's hand beautifully, so strangely, mouth curling and uncurling around so many words, so many details that make up his world, and that for that moment are all about John. The first time John dares to use the word “relationship” and the first time, not on the same occasion, Sherlock says “my thing with John” (to Lestrade, who grins inappropriately like the cat who got the cream). The first (and maybe only) time Sherlock looks confused when John tries to bring up monogamy and says: “As if there would ever be anyone else,” and accepts John's infinitely relieved kiss with some more confusion. The first time it's Sherlock who drapes his arms over John at night. The first time John mentions that maybe they should subvert his old room into a storage room. Decidedly not the first time they have a flaming row, but the first time it is about Sherlock flirting with a suspect. The first time John says “I'm sorry,” and seals it with a kiss. The first time Sherlock says John's name in his sleep. The first time Sherlock pulls him away from a very tedious statement taking with Lestrade and hisses: “John, it's unfortunate, but I can't seem to get the idea of having some form of sex with you out of my head, so if you'd be so gracious,” and the first time John tries to steady himself against the tiled wall of the loo at the Yard as Sherlock slides his mouth over his cock. The first time John goes to answer the door for the take-out bloke in his robe with absolutely nothing underneath because Sherlock had been talking about experiments about the fluctuating taste of semen, silencing all of John's joking protests that surely something so subjective could never be scientific by unbuttoning his purple shirt.

Lots of firsts.

No time for dates.

–

“Dinner,” Sherlock says tensely after a particularly gruesome case, involving trafficking and abuse and nauseating torture of children, that has left them both in a strange, downcast mood.

John agrees, but halfway through the meal it becomes clear that Sherlock would really rather not be there at all.

“Are you all right?” John asks him, and it's a testament to how far they've come that Sherlock doesn't even waver long before telling him no.

“I just want to... be somewhere dark, without sound,” he says, expression pained, a bit strangely, a bit touchingly.

It's something John knows about them; John needs a face, a voice, the weight of a body to lean against while he's reasserting that he's still alive, and he needs to talk about what happened, not directly, dancing around it, but still saying _something_ about how utterly without words he is to describe how it feels to see children lying dead, to hear children talking about what sometimes happens to them in nightmares of reality. Sherlock is different; he needs quiet. Needs his own senses. Needs to shut everything up because inside him it's already loud. They used to row about it but now they've got it figured out.

“Sure,” John says, quietly, and they tip the waiter generously for leaving three quarters of their food still on the table, and John takes Lestrade up on his earlier offer of a pint, made with such a tight face that John suspects Lestrade is like him and needs to look at someone else to see himself sometimes, while Sherlock goes home to be on his own.

–

“Let me take you out,” John says on Sherlock's birthday.

Sherlock says yes after much eye rolling and dismissing of the importance of birthdays and it's almost touching how he talks over his lamb curry about what the passing of time does to cells.

“Are you secretly afraid of aging?” John asks, grinning.

Sherlock waves it away. “Not anymore,” he says, with a certainty that takes John's breath away.

So it's all going quite wonderfully until Sherlock starts sniffing the air, and then later can't quite get loose from the crying proprietor of the restaurant, who clings to him hysterically and can't stop thanking him for getting everyone out before the gas leak caught fire. And of course Sherlock has to give a statement; the detective is a whole lot less proficient in Sherlock-speak than Lestrade, and by the time they get home Sherlock is in a bad mood.

–

Sherlock informs John that the following Friday will be theirs, and it will be Angelo's. It's almost a missive, that statement, and John smiles, because he too hasn't forgotten that it's the anniversary of their first have-some-food-while-waiting-for-a-serial-killer-and-awkwardly-try-to-test-the-waters-date at Angelo's, and it actually means a surprising amount to him that Sherlock has apparently imbued the date with so much meaning that it hasn't been deleted.

Lestrade calls just before John's tiramisù arrives, but it's all right, really, because Sherlock solves the case just by looking at the crime scene, spends only a minimal amount of time insulting Lestrade and his team, and looks at John with a familiar light in his eyes in their hallway.

“I would like it if you fucked me,” he informs John.

John has trouble breathing for a moment, and when he regains the ability to look at Sherlock, Sherlock looks a bit stricken and uncertain.

“God, yes,” John says, and the tension in Sherlock isn't quite lost, but its nature changes quite dramatically, and under John's body he becomes such a vision of flushed cheeks and alabaster skin dotted with redness where John has bitten him, damp curls sticking to his forehead, and the arresting quicksilver of his eyes darkened but infinitely clear as John slides into him, that John very seriously has to take a couple of seconds to recover himself before he can start moving.

–

John receives a _Chinese, Baker St, one hour. SH_ on his phone and snorts lightly at the non-invitation. Then spends some time trying to find his favourite jumper that he stubbornly considers acceptably dressy for casual dates – despite Sherlock's threats to burn it he finds it curled into a ball between the pillows on the couch, where he knows Sherlock will have propped his head on it during the most recent think about the case, now solved.

The cab isn't going to the restaurant, John realises halfway. He frowns, taps on the shield separating him from the driver.

“Sorry mate, higher orders,” the man returns easily.

For a moment, John has a point of fear in his belly; God, no, not this again, not kidnapped again, not now the times when Sherlock wakes against him raving about semtex and water have finally begun to be so few and far inbetween that John hopes that he'll someday stop dreaming about it altogether – but who meets him when the cabbie escorts him into an abandoned warehouse is Mycroft.

John groans, then bristles with sparking anger. “Why do you keep doing this to me? I had plans, you know!”

“I'm aware of it,” Mycroft returns smoothly. “And before you fatigue yourself, Sherlock has already thrown every piece of profanity in the English language and a few other languages and quite a lot of neologisms my way, so it would be redundant to repeat the experience. He's on his way as well. Very important case, John. Hence the need for... this.” He gestures to the rather unsavoury surroundings.

John's eyes pop. “You managed to convince him to come?”

Mycroft's grimace is laced with actual good humour. “I promised to grant you five evenings of your own choice in a restaurant that I don't have surveillance on, without a single pip from me.”

John shakes his head.

–

Sadly, Mycroft isn't even the most regular source of disturbance.

The first of the five Mycroft-less evenings has Mrs. Hudson urging them angrily to come home, because the mould Sherlock's secretly been cultivating on the pipes in the kitchen has resulted in their kitchen being flooded and water trickling down the stairs.

Sherlock raves about the importance of science and the sacrifices that must be made in the cab.

John, for his part, ignores him and tries to remember what freshly made food tastes like.

–

The second evening is perfect – Sherlock is post-case and mellow and happy and even the boniness of his knee against John's is oh so nice – until Sherlock says, very sharply, the sudden focus in his eyes like a whip: “John, don't drink that.”

It goes downhill from there, in a way, though John can't say that he didn't enjoy chasing down the infiltrated waiter or that it wasn't nice how Sherlock pored over the poisoned wine later, half-naked, after having made thoroughly sure that John was okay with his tongue and hands.

–

John is busy communicating to Sherlock with a foot against his calf under the table how much he appreciates the way Sherlock asks for more information on the wine in perfect, sultry Italian when Lestrade calls, voice sounding urgent even to John, who nevertheless can't make out what he's saying.

And Sherlock looks at John while firing off the questions – _where how many how long ago_ – and he's rigid with focus and his eyes glitter, and, well.

–

The impromptu date they go on in a slightly seedy roadside tavern would have been all right, were it not for the fact that the spaghetti bolognese actually turns out to have shellfish of some sort in it, and Sherlock drives John to the emergency room, alternating between muttering darkly and taking his eyes off the road for far too long to study John with wide eyes, looking for signs of his body failing; he had crushingly destroyed the chef in one of the most manic, incredible streams of deduction that John had ever heard from him and would have savoured immensely, if he hadn't been so close to suffocating.

–

“Sorry,” John says to Sherlock, ear to phone, just as the waitress who's been teaching Sherlock some Chinese and who, incredibly, gets to correct him on his pronunciation sometimes, drops their steamed dumplings in front of them. “It's Harry.”

And his stomach is hollow and Sherlock, who had seemed to be ready to destroy any and all arguments John might have had for leaving the restaurant, closes his mouth without saying anything, and just nods, brows furrowed.

–

Mycroft says: “I can hardly be held accountable for the fact that your five evenings didn't go to plan, Sherlock,” and though it sounds reasonable John rather agrees with Sherlock's venomous “Please go somewhere else and never return.”

Mycroft does go somewhere else, but John is tense, and eventually tells Sherlock: “You know, it did sound serious.”

And the resigned look Sherlock throws him says clearly that Sherlock had felt that, too, and now that John has voiced it there's really no way back.

John stays to eat his food, but it's not the same, to say the least.

Sherlock is gone for seven hours and texts John thirteen times.

–

John is trailing his finger down the list of day specials at Angelo's, when Sherlock says: “Actually, no.”

“No?” John asks him, eyebrows raised.

“I really want to get you home so I can fuck you,” Sherlock says.

John leaves Angelo a large tip, Angelo leaves John a cheeky grin.

–

Sherlock informs him over a generous portion of moussaka that it's perfectly acceptable to have two anniversaries to celebrate. In fact, it is preferable to one anniversary and a birthday, because birthdays are utterly random while anniversaries are days on which they personally made decisions.

“Being born isn't a decision,” he says, and his lip is curled in disdain in such a precious way that John can't stop the chuckle.

It's a bit random, because it's already been six years since their first official date-that-is-a-date, but John doesn't object to celebrating it now.

When he says, as a joke: “So I guess this means we can never get married, because then we'd have three anniversaries,” Sherlock chokes and coughs for so long that John genuinely starts to worry.

“I didn't mean it,” he says, handing Sherlock a glass of water.

That seems to make it worse, because Sherlock is staring at him like he's the most puzzling thing in the world, and not really in the most positive sense.

“Um,” John says, but at that moment the duo of heroin traffickers whose leader Sherlock got landed in a lifetime of prison not three weeks ago decide to make their presence announced in the form of two knives: one to Sherlock's throat, and one to John's back.

Sherlock blinks, and it's really a testament to how confused he still is from John's talk that he doesn't respond for two seconds.

But then he's him again and John would probably get very aroused by his form and strength and the strange silence with which he fights if John wasn't fighting himself, and thanking – someone, doesn't matter who – that he randomly decided to bring his gun so he can force his attacker off with the threat of it.

The owner of the restaurant calls the police when the gangsters are restrained and then spends the time until they come being torn between trying to punch Sherlock and singing his praises in Greek. “Wonderful fight,” he tells John with a thick accent, looking angry and impressed at the same time.

Lestrade looks at John as he clicks the cuffs onto one of the criminals, apparently also wanted for murder, about twenty-five minutes later, and in the minute shake of his head John reads another _I will try to forget about your illegal gun, I will try to forget about your illegal gun, I will try to forget_. Sherlock half-shouts at him about trauma and fatigue and, a lot softer, anniversaries, and Lestrade's sigh comes from a place deep, deep inside him, and he says: “All right. Statements tomorrow.” Sherlock frowns when Lestrade adds: “Take care of each other,” expressing every inch of the _that's all we ever do_.

“Happy anniversary,” John half-slurs at Sherlock in the police car that brings them home, his jaw sore from the battering it took.

Sherlock's face is a strange mix of fierceness and tenderness.

–

Sherlock is in a good mood and mandhandles him into his jacket. “No argument,” he says, “I can tell that you need Thai right now.”

He does.

But his phone rings before they even make it out of the door, and there's an overflow of emergencies at the clinic, and they wouldn't have asked him as reinforcement for the emergency room team if it wasn't necessary, but there's been a bus crash and please, Dr. Watson, you are needed.

There is a minute tensing of muscles in Sherlock's face, but he lets John go with only one well-placed comment about how John is a slave to the system.

–

“God, not again,” John groans.

“It's Irene Adler,” Sherlock says unnecessarily.

“Yes, I got that when I heard the orgasm,” John responds, feeling totally entitled to his snappishness. “Why haven't you changed that? It's been _years_. It's not even the same phone, for Christ's sake.”

Sherlock shrugs, looking the picture of innocence.

“Wait,” John says, brain catching up, “she's still alive?”

Himself again, Sherlock smirks. “Of course she is,” he just says, and then he does say that he's sorry and he even seems to mean it, but he's gone before the waiter has even brought the menu.

John tries not to be jealous.

When Sherlock bursts through the door of 221B three hours later, he's already undone half of his buttons.

“I could tell how there's no reason to be jealous, but I'll just show you instead,” he says, and John doesn't feel weak at all for letting him.

–

“We could go to the cinema for a change,” John says.

Sherlock looks at him. Studying him. As though he's trying to figure out what alien force has taken him over.

“Doesn't have to be a fictional film. A documentary?” John tries.

Sherlock scoffs.

A date that never was, and Sherlock calls out for Chinese and mumbles to himself while he pores over his microscope; John watches Never Mind the Buzzcocks and tries to ignore Sherlock's gibes at the show, secretly very content.

–

“Oh God,” John says, “don't try to move. Stay there. We're coming.”

And Sherlock is already half to his feet when John ends the phone call, so the panic in his voice must have been quite alarming. “What is it?” he asks, harshly.

“Mrs. Hudson,” John says, head reeling, “she – heart attack, she thinks – thank God she had the phone on her – and then of course she only thinks of calling _us_ , Christ –” and he punches in 999 to call for an ambulance, looking at how Sherlock's eyes flutter closed for the barest of seconds, and his mouth drops into a downward curve, but not seeing it, not really. Sherlock throws a wad of notes onto the table; probably about ten times more than the check could ever have been, but, well.

They arrive about two minutes before the ambulance does, and she's draped over the stairs, so wrong, all wrong, with corners that she shouldn't have; a tiny stretch of old lady in cerise, hand curled around the banister, the heart no longer immune to breaking. After all that it's gone through, the heart, failing, stuttering.

She tries to speak and it's Sherlock who shushes her, who folds his legs up to sit next to her, who puts a hand against her face as John tries to get her more comfortable.

They can't go with her in the ambulance because they're not family – Sherlock shouts and grabs at collars and swears in ways that John has never seen him do, and in the end they hail a cab, already feeling defeat taking shape around them. Sherlock hides his face in John's shoulder during the ride, too tall, too small, too much of a boy losing a mother, and John can't help but close his eyes against the hotness pressing behind them.

And back at home, hours later, lives later, there is the whisper of her, still the lingering scent of what she was baking before her body started to rebel, and now that she will never be coming home it's too black and white to accept.

Sherlock cries in his sleep, silently, cheeks smearing wetness against John as he tries to get closer on instinct. John cries too, a bit, haltingly – irrevocably awake.

–

After the funeral they go out to dinner.

And then can't, and leave before the first course, leaving too much money, again.

“John,” Sherlock says, standing in the middle of their living room, his mouth tense.

“I know,” John says, because oh, how he feels it, the _I don't want you to go away, ever_.

Sherlock brushes his knuckles over his forehead. John leans into it, and they just stand together, for a bit, because what else is there to do?

–

“To the fact that you are now officially going grey,” John toasts, and Sherlock glares at him.

“Don't pout,” John says, grinning. “That hair was a lovely discovery on my pillow. I think I'll keep it and look at it sometimes.”

Sherlock huffs.

“Are you secretly afraid of aging?” John asks, a bit more serious.

Sherlock's face softens. John supposes the memory, for him, is a lot clearer than for John, still – Sherlock has said in moments of uncharacteristic candidness (after orgasm, after a chase, after a bottle of wine) how virtually everything that John has ever said has received a place in the mind palace. “You know full well that I'm not,” Sherlock says, gently. Then, shifting back into himself: “If I were I'd be taking up with someone far younger than you. That waiter, for example.” He's definitely not out of his twenties yet, a beautiful man, obviously interested in Sherlock and how he's tall and cheekboned and now officially going grey.

“You should,” John says easily. “Though I don't think he has my oral skills.”

Sherlock's eyes are glittering. “His dexterity will be better than yours, though. And I suspect his pillow talk might be more exciting.”

“I doubt it.” John calls the waiter around for another bottle of wine, and Sherlock is genuinely grinning. Over nothing, really.

Then it's Lestrade again on the phone, and Sherlock's face slips further and further into subtle confusion, and a tinge of horror, and a lot of excitement, and John is already out of his chair when Sherlock's eyes flick to his.

–

“Your birthday present is a challenge,” John says, and ignores Sherlock's gentle eye roll. “Find me a restaurant in London that I haven't been to and that's _good_.”

Sherlock goes out and comes back forty minutes later, pink and melty with late-season frost.

“Tuxedo,” he says, and John reminds him he doesn't have one.

So he ends up in one of his dressier trousers with the only completely white shirt he has, drowning in one of Sherlock's dressing jackets, laughing at the prissiness of it all, but having to concede to Sherlock that yes, this truffle ravioli is the most amazing thing on the planet.

Except you, he thinks, and then might have said it out loud, and Sherlock's grin is cheeky and swift over the rim of his glass.

They might have made it through the night if halfway through the meal a group of people Sherlock knew at university hadn't stepped into the restaurant, or if they hadn't tried to make breezy conversation with him, that even John can tell is dotted with barbs and allusions. Sherlock is alight with a suppressed fury that John doesn't know if he's ever seen, and tears them _apart_ , laying bare every thread of betrayal and adultery and thievery between them; he almost reduces one of them to furious tears and another to jerky fists that he clenches further to keep in check.

The maître d'hôtel is slightly apologetic, but still asks them to leave.

Outside, Sherlock's face is veiled, and he peers at John with narrowed eyes. “I might have overreacted a bit,” he says, and it's more than John could ever ask for from him.

He tangles their hands together. “Maybe,” he says, “but I love you and if they've ever hurt you, they're not good people in my book.”

Sherlock breathes. “I don't get hurt,” he says.

John quirks an eyebrow.

“But yes,” Sherlock continues, and it's enough as a retractment of the untruth they both know the previous words to be, “they weren't good people.”

“Let's walk,” John says, breath a rising cloud in front of his mouth, and Sherlock only puts up the barest pretense of protest.

–

“Soon we'll have a reputation for getting our favourite restaurants blown up,” John says, passing a hand over his face, feeling the grime that's settled on him like a film mixing with the sweat and blood on his palm.

Sherlock, blackened by smoke and swaying a bit on his feet, seems to be in a bit of shock, because in the flashes of light bouncing off the ambulance he says to John, voice heavy with dust: “I was going to propose to you tonight.”

“Shhhh,” John says, “you're in shock. It's all right.”

Sherlock frowns; smears of soot mixing a bit hypnotically with the slow trickle of thickening blood from the cut over his eyebrows. “I'm really not,” he says.

John raises an eyebrow at him, then winces; apparently he, too, has a wound on his forehead.

“I was going to –” Sherlock says, then suddenly stops talking, and his eyes narrow as if he's seeing the solution to something. “Delete that,” he says.

“You know I don't quite work like that,” John says, and something in him isn't in shock, because it's beginning to burn as bright as the explosion they just survived.

Sherlock scowls; bright tracks of blood, of life, feeling their way through the lines in his face, the patterns of grime.

“You madman,” John says, and then, because he knows Sherlock can't, right now, the way they are in that moment, he says: “Will you marry me?”

Sherlock wraps him into a hug of angles and soot. “That's not quite fair,” he croaks, dust and emotion closing off his throat.

“All right, you do it then,” John responds, closing his eyes, trying not to inhale too much explosion from Sherlock's ruined coat.

“No, I...” Sherlock says, then is silent, and John can feel him thinking. “Yes,” he finally says, a quiet word after the blasts that are still ringing in their ears, and John has to bite down on his lips to stop himself from laughing out loud.

–

The marriage is a small affair; Mycroft attends, and Harry, and the formidable smallness that is Sherlock's mother, and other people more chosen than inherited: Lestrade, Angelo, Mike Stamford, Molly, John's best mate from uni, Bill.

There are vows.

Sherlock states how it's been proven that having a spouse is good for mental health, and then is actually a bit funny in how he for once tries to undermine science and gives example after example of how they drive each other mad. John is laughing for most of it, until Sherlock says that he would have wanted Mrs. Hudson to see this.

John, having suffered over this far more than over any awkwardly worded blog post, says there is just no other way his life could have gone, and that he knows Sherlock will disapprove when he says it but that he really thinks that some things have only happened to propel him into Sherlock's path. That there has been so much he could never have imagined would happen, or that he could never have imagined would happen any differently. Sherlock looks caught between faint embarrassment and bursting love.

There are rings though Sherlock tells John that it's likely he will drop his into an acid bath within the first six months, and that if it happens, John is prohibited from seeing it as an omen.

Dinner is interrupted before dessert by everyone starting to feel the symptoms from quite a serious bout of food poisoning from the salmon canapés.

Most of their wedding night is consequently spent in the emergency room, and as soon as John's head clears and Sherlock has stopped puking at regular intervals, John takes his hand and tugs him in a bit, fitting his nose into the slope of Sherlock's shoulder melting into his collarbone, hard under his fancy shirt.

“What have I got myself into?” he smiles into the soft material and the hardness, the heartbeat of Sherlock underneath.

“I know you're slow, John, but this is a particularly belated thought.” Sherlock presses a kiss to the top of his head.

–

“We're on our honeymoon,” Sherlock hisses into his phone, and though their marriage was two years ago, it is the first trip outside of England since it took place, so John guesses that works. “ _Stop calling_.”

John traces the sun dripping down through the watery Swedish sky behind him, chewing slowly over his roast pork.

“No, Mycroft, I w–” Sherlock is saying, but then suddenly he goes very still, and his mouth stops halfway through a word.

Immediately on edge, John tries to read something in his eyes, but there's nothing there but the steady widening of pupils.

“Yes,” is the only thing he still voices, and then hangs up with a very slow touch of his thumb to his phone.

John swallows his pork.

“Mummy,” Sherlock says, and closes his eyes for a moment, a statue in a trickle of liquid sunshine, and John, heart constricting, says: “Oh no,” then nods and calls over to the waitress with the perfect, accentless English to explain her that it's delicious but they really have somewhere to go, and can she please bring the bill.

–

“Dimmock, we're retiring after this,” Sherlock snaps into his phone, as John is already wiping his mouth, ready to get up. Angelo spares him a half-pitying, half-humourous look from where he's overlooking the small kingdom now run by his son Giovanni.

After the chase, leg twinging urgently, lungs burning, Sherlock far more out of breath than he would have been five years ago, John says: “It would have been nice if you'd asked me about that, but I do agree that a retirement might be in order.”

–

“Mycroft,” Sherlock says through gritted teeth, “I thought you stopped working for the British government six months ago.” From his eye roll John can tell the answer is _one does not simply stop working for the British government, Sherlock_.

Sherlock glares at his phone for a long time, then says to John, mouth pulling as if he's in pain: “I still owe him a favour from when he magicked away that ASBO from when I punched that idiot dressed as Santa in the face.”

John laughs, then frowns. “Well, off you go, then. I'm finishing this linguine. It's delicious.”

Sherlock grimaces at him as he does up his coat, then walks out; restrained in a way that he would never have managed ten years ago.

–

Sherlock helps him into his jacket.

“I'm starving,” John says.

“You've got enough fat reserves to survive for another month, I'd say,” Sherlock responds, doing up the buttons on his own coat.

John swats at him with his cane, and Sherlock's mouth quirks into his half-smile.

It's Indian tonight, the one decent Indian they've managed to find in their new, rural neighbourhood; Sherlock still likes things spicy, and tries to dust off his Hindi when he can.

John's curry is perfectly spiced and fragrant, the low lighting catches on the dignified stripes of grey through Sherlock's mess of curls, now far more silver than charcoal, and Sherlock catches his knee between the two bony points that are his own; a clear promise. Sherlock mocks him for a while because he'd spent a good portion of the morning crumbling bread onto the windowsill and observing the birds that came to eat it. John mocks him right back for spending a good portion of the morning observing John observing birds. Sherlock drinks wine and cracks jokes about John's bum.

“You're a dirty old man,” John says, frowning. Sherlock grins.

In the cab, Sherlock splays his fingers over John's forehead, fitting them into the grooves of living, the lines left by city, by running, by rushing at high-speed, embedded in his skin.

John kisses him and ignores the weirdly tender look the cabbie gives him in his mirror; ten years ago this would probably have registered as either offensive or sexy, and now it's just adorable – but Sherlock's eyes are full of heat behind the coolness of his irises, and that's more than enough.

They're both a lot softer than they used to be, though Sherlock is still tall and wiry enough to look slender in his clothes; without them, John can see the slow relaxing of skin, the sags where gravity plays, the roundedness of a belly. He rather loves it, though Sherlock squirms when he spends too much time tracing his stomach.

There is a sweetness, a flavour of _home_ to sliding into the curving lines of Sherlock's body underneath him – the fever between them has become a slowly smouldering fire, still sparking at times like this, and Sherlock's teeth catch on his bottom lip as he urges John on with small sounds, half-words, whole words, John's name, descriptions of what he sees playing across John's face, and John peppers his face with kisses, because he can't not, and because it has been a while since they were here, together like this, and they should never forget.

Sherlock unravels underneath him with the strange intensity that John loves, always has loved, always will love, and his eyes that fix on John while his mouth trembles and his whole body goes hard and then slack, is the final thing that John needs to come, too, and he can't quite do it in the same utter exposure Sherlock can, and his eyes slip closed, and his moan is half-strangled – but Sherlock is a shocking stretch of realness beneath him, and they collapse together like they have done so often, breaths mingling, cells exchanged on the outer layer of their skins.

Lying together in the protective cage of their limbs, seeping warmth into each other, John laughs after a few moments.

Sherlock pokes him in the shoulder as an unspoken _now what?_

“Your memory is better than mine. Tell me, was this really the first dinner that we've managed to complete without having to run off somewhere?”

There's a small silence as, presumably, Sherlock speeds through years and years of dinners.

“I – I actually think it is,” he finally says, and sounds a bit dazed, which makes John laugh.

John rolls off and drapes himself over Sherlock's side. “We're getting old, Sherlock,” he mumbles, after a long stretch of silence, of falling toward sleep together.

Sherlock's hands brush over his forehead in the friendly dimness of their bedroom. “Is this a belated impending midlife crisis, John?”

John chuckles lightly. “Ever since I met you I've been doing things that most people would describe as volatile, risky and emotionally compromised. I guess that means the past thirty years have been a midlife crisis.”

Sherlock's mouth is close to his temple. “More like a life crisis, I believe.”

John curls closer into him. “Yes,” he breathes, because he knows what Sherlock means, and they know it of each other by now, know it so intimately it's never even a question anymore: there is nothing beyond this, they will remain entwined until one of them flickers out like a candle, and it's not horrible for John to realise that he wants it to be Sherlock who dies first, because a Sherlock without him is too horrible to contemplate – so many things about him would get locked up again, after the careful years of unwinding some of his complexities, and it's too much to bear. If John gets left behind, it would be like living with a new bullet hole that never heals, but he knows grief by now in a way that Sherlock never has, and he knows himself to be able to carry it until he can follow Sherlock to whatever new place where he might find a use for them.

Once, when they were younger and Sherlock still sometimes looked at him with uncertainty in his eyes, Sherlock had told him that he sometimes dreamt that they died together – explosions, criminals, all of the twists and bends of their life together. And it had meant something because John knew that before him, Sherlock had sometimes dreamt of his own death, explosions criminals drugs, and he'd always been alone.

It would have been good, he sometimes thinks; for Sherlock, especially. Having the lines of his narrative snapped loose on an upward stroke, on a summit, with the only drug he still allowed buzzing in his veins, adrenaline-heavy, light-drowning – it would have been good, and for John it would have been all right, too, as long as they got to look at each other the second before.

Still, they're still here and the twists and turns have become far less sharp and nowadays the dangers they brave have to do with Sherlock not being able to see what colour the traffic lights are but refusing to get glasses or with John misreading the labels on lids of containers in the cupboard and adding freeze-dried bits of poisonous slugs to his tea instead of sugar. They're not likely to die together anymore, now.

“Do you miss it?” he asks into the slow deepening of silence, the sinking of limbs with sleep. He asks this question with some regularity, just to be sure, just to keep track of things if they might be changing within Sherlock.

Sherlock doesn't reply for a long moment. “It's different now,” he finally hums, which is what he usually says, John presumes because it is the truth. His voice is darkened with impending sleep.

John nods against him, knows. Knows how the city flashing past them had started to go a fraction too fast even for Sherlock, and how the relocation to the countryside – his idea, not John's – that would have seemed impossible before now just stimulates him in gentler ways, and how in recent years it doesn't seem as important anyway, seeing everything, being part of everything. There are evenings now when trying to beat John at chess in under a minute in as many different ways as possible seems as satisfying to Sherlock as any rooftop chase used to be. Not that John doesn't often find him poring over old case notes in a prickly mood or shouting at the telly when the news presenter informs them of new murders or thefts – but it doesn't stick as long as it used to, and nowadays he seems to get enjoyment out of reading thick tomes of non-fiction and scribbling the margins full of notes or, infinitely amusing to John because Sherlock had mocked him relentlessly for his awakening interest in ornithology, watching the birds on John's very badly contructed feeding platter, sometimes even for hours, contemplating things that John even after all these years likely doesn't know anything about, only breaking his pose to shout abuse at the neighbour's cats when they get too close.

John's eyes fall shut, replacing the blueish stillness of the bedroom with the jet black of the inside of his eyelids, where lights popped when they touched together not long ago, but not now, in this calm trickle of time.

“I liked tonight,” John says, a bit blurrily.

Sherlock says nothing, and from the steadiness of the warm flow of his breathing over John's forehead John can tell that he's asleep. He smiles to himself, a small smile, a smile for hours without light, and counts the breaths until he loses track, consciousness stretching out into foggy tatters of thought that curl around him, around Sherlock, and the last thing he knows for certain, like always, is all of the points where their bodies touch.


End file.
